ADJ-00020803

Complainant

Respondent

Anonymised Parties

An Electrical Foreman

An Electrical Company

Act

Complaint Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under section 6 of the Payment of Wages Act, 1991

CA-00027396-001

30/03/2019

The complainant was employed by the respondent as an electrical foreman from the 1^st March 1998 until the 9^th March 2019.  He worked 39 hours per week and he was paid €2,340 gross and €1,800 net per fortnight.  He is claiming that he was not paid wages contrary to the Payment of Wages Act, 1991

The complainant said that he was employed with the Respondent for 21 years and he decided to hand in his notice on the 25^th February because the employer was constantly late paying his wages.  He said that the employer failed to pay his wages for the last 3 weeks of his employment. 

The Respondent did not attend the hearing.

The Payment of Wages Act provides at Section 5(1)

“An employer shall not make a deduction from the wages of an employee (or receive any payment from an employee) ….”. 

 In O’Sullivan v Department of Education [1998} E.L.R. the EAT held that a deduction includes any amount payable to an employee. It stated: “the Tribunal considers that if an employee does not receive what is properly payable to him or her from the outset then this can amount to a deduction within the meaning of the 1991 Act. We take ‘payable’ to mean properly payable. The definition of ‘wages’ goes on to give examples of types of payments which can amount to ‘wages’ and states that the payments can amount to wages ‘whether payable under [his] contract of employment or otherwise ….’ Although in our view it is not simply a matter of what may have been agreed or arranged or indeed paid from the outset but, in the view of the Tribunal, all sums to which an employee is properly entitled.”

The Respondent did not attend the hearing and having considered the Complainant’s evidence, I am satisfied that the complainant was not paid his wages for the last 3 weeks of his employment. Therefore, I find that the complaint is well founded.

Section 6 of the Act provides:

A decision of an adjudication officer under section 41 of the Workplace Relations Act 2015, in relation to a complaint of a contravention of section 5 as respects a deduction made by an employer from the wages of an employee or the receipt from an employee by an employer of a payment, that the complaint is, in whole or in part, well founded as respects the deduction or payment shall include a direction to the employer to pay to the employee compensation of such amount (if any) as he considers reasonable in the circumstances not exceeding—

(a) the net amount of the wages (after the making of any lawful deduction therefrom) that—

(i) in case the complaint related to a deduction, would have been paid to the employee in respect of the week immediately preceding the date of the deduction if the deduction had not been made, or

(ii) in case the complaint related to a payment, were paid to the employee in respect of the week immediately preceding the date of payment,

or

(b) if the amount of the deduction or payment is greater than the amount referred to in paragraph (a), twice the former amount.   

I note that the complainant left the employment after 21 years because of the late payment of his wages by the Respondent This caused loss and inconvenience to the complainant. Pursuant to section 6(1)(b) of the Payments of Wages Act, cited above, I consider it reasonable in these circumstances to award twice the net amount of the unlawful deduction, i.e. a total of €5,400.

I find that the complaint is well founded, and I award compensation in the net amount of €5,400

Payment of Wages, 1991, Non-Payment of Wages Section 5, compensation Section 6